The Winding Path
by newyorklover
Summary: An assortment of drabbles based around Clint and Natasha - covers meeting, partnership, and relationship. Rating covers all language and future chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_**Hello! So this is the first part in a series of drabbles that I write on my phone when inspiration strikes. This one was inspired by sgtwilliamjames' tags on a gifset of Clint and Natasha sitting on the medical bed, when he whispers her name. If you don't know about the talented people of tumblr, check them out!**_

_**All property owned by Marvel.**_

She unstraps the cuffs tying him to the medical bed, and he sits up slowly whilst accepting the cup of ice water she hands him. The circles under her eyes and the tense purse of her mouth betray her steady hands as their fingers brush, and he swings his legs down so she can sit beside him.

They are two halves of a whole.

They sit in the steel room in silence, waiting for the other to state the inevitable. It's clear as fucking crystal they are compromised. He's been better (or perhaps worse?) at showing it, and she has always been resolute in the mask swallowing her feelings about him.

The cracks have been showing recently.

His arms glisten from the perspiration of his exertion at freeing his mind and his heart, of taking them back from an intruder and giving them back to the person they really belong to.

He belongs to her, but she's never demonstrated she belongs to him.

Until that fateful night, with her vulnerability laid bare, that one line over the phone she could not bear to think about before.

"Natasha. Barton's been compromised."

All of a sudden, the red in her ledger is put on hold, because without him there would be no black in her ledger, and yes she owes him a debt but it's so much more than that. How do you describe their partnership when they crossed boundaries a long time ago. Fucking is a poor speculation that their fellow SHIELD agents seem to think makes them close. They haven't gone there, held onto that last bit of denial because once that line is crossed there is nothing that will come between them. But even without that final line crossed, she has surprised them all with her single-minded determination to bring him back. To her. He is hers, and no-one else's.

He whispers her name under his breath, just a hint of his emotions running through them and she wants to bury herself in his skin and tell him that he is never leaving her again.

"Natasha."

She looks down instead, lips pulling together tightly as she restrains her feelings. There will be time for this, all the time in the world. But after. He is the one with red in his ledger now, and she is going to be the one to make sure he wipes it out.

So when Rogers gives her a questioning look, she doesn't hesitate. He is loyal. To her. And that is all they need to know.


	2. Chapter 2

_**So, I'm genuinely considering uploading all the chapters I have written so far today or tomorrow. I would love to know what you think!**_

She flicked the light on in the musty flat that she'd paid far too much for but was ideal for a low key, on the border of the city bolt hole she needed to recuperate and make a plan.

She felt his presence in the corner of the room before she saw him and sighed. He smiled.

"I would be offended that you left me in your previous residence, fast asleep and buck-ass nude, but I've seen what you do to the rest of the men you've invited into your bed so somehow, I'm going to take this as a compliment, Ms. Romanoff." His obnoxiously mid-Western accent rumbled across her and she remembered that voice as it seeped into her skin as he came last night.

She gritted her teeth. How did this man know exactly how to antagonise her?

"It's Romanova. I'm not a man. And I let you have the chance to lie your way back to your superiors, Carnie. Should have taken that chance."

His smile widened. "My, you have been doing your research. How did you get into such a redacted file?"

She shrugged. She was bored with the conversation now, but his mere presence meant that she needed to move, immediately.

"Hacking expert. People always underestimate me with their computers because, well, they think my thighs are the best bit about me."

He let out a bark of laughter.

"Sweetheart, hand on my heart, everything about you impresses me. But especially your thighs."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Friendly reminder that these are not in chronological order, they are different points in time. If I think it's not clear when a certain chapter takes place, I'll put a note in. Thanks for the lovely reviews, please keep them coming!**_

Natasha imagines the hourglass on her belt draining a little bit of red every time she succeeds. It is her timekeeper, keeping track of her sins and atonements. It is her cross to bear, the acknowledgement that she once was blind, but now she sees. She is red and wrath and blazing glory to the people she saves, and her name couldn't be more appropriate.

She had hated it, when she took his hand and he murmured it respectfully, reminding her that he knew all her transgressions, that no-one had survived her bed or her attentions. The whispers of her name that followed her around the base, a mixture of fear and revulsion and incredulity.

He doesn't treat her like they do, and she doesn't resent him like she does the others. Eventually, he creeps his way into her heart and they share secrets and dreams and is this what the Black Widow is now? Someone with dreams? She laughs at her new life, and how people seem to think she needs him, how they double check with him on something she instructs them.

She punches the bag until her knuckles bleed, and he finds her on the floor with her hands in her hair and he cannot tell where her hair begins and the blood on her hands end. He patches her up, and she looks at him and knows that she doesn't need him. But she does want him, in her life and as her constant. He will patch her up, and she will save herself like she always has. But she won't say no to help along the way.


	4. Chapter 4

She saw him fall. She faltered ever so slightly but she knew he was wearing Kevlar so she resumed her shooting without even blinking and edged her way around the building to get closer to him.

Something wasn't right. His breathing was stuttered and he wasn't moving.

"Barton! Barton, get up!" She ducked behind a concrete slab and dragged him towards her.

"...Clint?"

The medical evac team swarm around her and she looks down at her hands and they are so red, they are gushing with his blood and she realises the bullet must have nicked something important because there is too much blood here. He won't make it.

Four days later, and with the doctor bringing her the best news, and the worst news within breaths of each other, she climbs into his bunk and inhales his scent from the sheets.

She can feel him still, and some small gut feeling tells her this will work out. Because for once in her life, she deserves a happy ending.

Eight months later and their baby girl is brought into the world, and the team surround her and praise her and her child. She reminds them that Alexandra is not just hers, she is his as well, and they fall silent as they stare at this part of Clint they will cherish like family.

Five months later, and a knock on her door leaves her cautiously approaching with a gun in her hand and her heartbeat in her ears. All of the team have the combination, and whoever is there has not been extended an invitation.

The knock sounds again, and she edges along the wall silently as she flips open the monitor to the camera outside.

She nearly loses her balance.

"No," she breathes, clutching a shaking hand to her mouth as her breathing accelerates.

"Go away! I won't fall for that! You'll have to do better if you want her, but the cruelty of making a doppelgänger of - of him! I will find you people and I will _destroy_ you. Don't think I won't protect my child."

She sees him inhale a breath, and he looks up at the camera. "Your - your child? Nat? We have a child?"

Pain lacerates her heart.

"Just go. Please. I've lost him once. Don't make me suffer more."

He makes a small whimper at that. "Nat, the last thing I remember before waking up in the middle of nowhere, with a mission pack on deep undercover long term operation in a facility in Colombia is being dragged out of your arms with blood loss and an inability to move. I haven't been allowed contact, and no-one told me I have a child!"

Her heart pounds so loudly she thinks it might burst out of her chest.

"What do we remember differently? What do you tell me every night when you think I'm asleep? What happened the first and second time we met?"

She grips the monitor tightly. Please let it be him. She has seen people remade and if it is not him, she doesn't think she could cope.

"Nat. We will always remember Budapest differently, because it was a clusterfuck of a mission but you had the time of your life. I tell you that I am the black in your ledger, because you save me every day and your quest for salvation is one of the most beautiful things I love about you. And really? You're gonna make me talk about you leaving me buck-ass nude in your bed whilst you did a runner and then got really pissed at me when I found you? You need to come up with better security questions, sweetheart."

She wrenched open the door.

He's standing there and it's like the last year of her life never happened. He smiles, apologetically.

"I'm sorry. It wasn't a job I could decline, and the council knew I would so they dumped me there without Fury's knowledge. He thinks I've been dead too. He's literally living up to his name right now." She presses her lips to his.

"Get in here Barton. You've missed a hell of a lot, and this isn't going to be easy - for both of us.

She leads him to the nursery, where their daughter sleeps amongst a starry ceiling with lasers built in that block entrance from the door and the windows to the crib should intruders enter the house.

Natasha appreciated Stark's paranoia sometimes.

She gently lifts their daughter and he chokes on a sob as be cradles her carefully from her mother's arms.

"Thank you," he says, looking up at her over his daughter's perfect face. "For her. Thank you. I can't even describe how sorry I wasn't here - you thought I was dead and you still had my child. Thank you."

The pain is receding in her heart. She smiles at him. She thinks her happy ending might just be real, after all.


End file.
